We are pleased to announce that Firmware 8.5.1 Beta 2 is now available.
Release Notes
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Does 8.5.1 fix the bug where 8.5.0 has excessive cellular usage? When I upgraded from 8.4.1 to 8.5.0 my cellular usage went from 0.08GB per month to 3.0GB per month (this is with the same configuration and zero fallback/failover)
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I also noticed an increase in cellular usage even though I never lost my primary ISP connection. I am using a Balance One Core router.
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Can you please submit a ticket to allow support to check ?
https://ticket.peplink.com/ticket/new/public
By reading the released notes, I don’t see any similar issue have been reported.
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Thank you for advising that this is not a known issue. I have since opened a ticket.
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Same here, I hadn’t checked until today, but the monthly cellular billing cycle came in and it was much higher than usual.
We have a Balance 20x that uses a 4g cellular backup link (US T-Mobile). As the main connection is usually good, the cellular backup rarely kicks in. On months where it doesn’t activate, there is usually a 50-60MB usage for the health checks etc… Last month it was 468MB even though the link never activated. Looking into the logs I can see the average daily use is now around 15-20MB daily even though the back up link is never activated (used to be around 1.6-2MB per day). The increase in data use started on the exact day we upgraded the B20x to Firmware 8.5. So like the two previous reports, I think there is something going on with Firmware 8.5 that increases the cellular usage of inactive links, at least on the B20x.
I hope this gets addressed in 8.5.1.
I am currently travelling for the next 3 weeks, so I won’t have time to submit a ticket and do the follow up, but I will try to check the forums and I will be happy to respond if you have additional questions.
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Thanks for posting. I have an open ticket and I will advise that you are also having a problem.
PS: safe travels
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Thank you :). Peplink support is great, so I suspect that now they have heard of it, they will resolve it.
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I have a Balance One Core with same issue on Firmware 8.5.0. I turned off the backup cellular link. I’ll turn it on as needed.
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Thanks for posting, glad to know we are not the only ones. I am still out of the office so I haven’t had time to follow up, but I am wondering if you had any success with your ticket @Selby . Thanks.
UPDATE: I opened a ticket regarding this bug. Peplink was great to work with. They tested and confirmed that 8.5.0 has a bug that causes WAN DNS to send using standby WAN. They also stated that the bug was fixed in 8.5.1 (they shared test data that supports this).
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8.5.1 RC2 firmware can be downloaded here:
(per Peplink on NOV 21: The firmware 8.5.1 still in release candidate builds 2 (RC 2). The firmware passed the beta testing and now in release candidates version 2)
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Me, personally, I will wait for general release here:
(per Peplink on NOV 21: based on the info given by the Engineering team, we will have the 8.5.1 RC3 release in 1 to 2 days. If 8.5.1RC3 is working great, potential it can be the GA version in 1-2 weeks
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Great! Thank you very much @selby for the details you provided. 
. Looking through the release notes they apparently fixed that in 8.5.1 Beta 1 “Fixed an issue where the Local DNS Proxy used the hot standby WAN to resolve hostnames”: Issue# 32917.Easy to find once you know what too look for 
. Can’t wait for the GA as well to get that issue behind us. Thanks again. Cheers!
UPDATE: I have since installed firmware 8.5.1 and can confirm that the problem is fixed.
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Yes, it seems fixed as long as DoH is not enabled (DNS over HTTPS). Of course we were using DoH so initially it did not appear fixed. As soon as we turned off DoH it was indeed resolved. So they are working on a further fix for 8.5.2 for when DoH is enabled. Thanks again for helping with that issue earlier . See: Issue 32917 reported resolved in 8.5.1 is not resolved when DoH is enabled for more info.
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peparn, thanks for the heads up regarding DoH. Have a happy new year and hope that gets fixed for you soon.
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